


Library Whispers

by ChloeWinchester



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 09:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWinchester/pseuds/ChloeWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With nowhere to stay, Rumplestiltskin finds refuge in the library elevator and overhears just how well his wife is doing without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Library Whispers

He had no where to stay now. Nowhere safe. Home was out of the question, the shop could be visited at any time, even that house he and Belle had spent their honeymoon was much too dangerous to visit.

Seeing as they had to resurrect Maleficent eventually anyway, he may as well stay close to the eventual destination of him and his new companions.

The library elevator was small, but warm. Certainly warmer than the woods, the black asphalt, beneath a bridge or a streetlamp, and he was grateful for that. He’d slept in worse place in his long three hundred years, certainly, and falling asleep wasn’t the least bit difficult.

If it weren’t for the soft smell of books.

Of Belle.

The little paper cuts on her fingers always healing the soft gentle smell of paper and binding on her skin, how rough they would get when she couldn’t put a series down… Belle. And it was, agonizing to be here.

Each time he closed his eyes there she was, perched somewhere with a book in her lap, lying on the rug with it above her, throwing one across the room when it made her too angry. She fell asleep on them at the table, with them on her chest, let her cereal get soggy, her tea grow cold. She laughed, she cried and constantly, constantly, constantly they were piled around her and she looked so lovely decorated with them.

Two libraries he’d given her, but she would devour them like the storm she was and it was so beautiful.

The sleep he got was fitful.

His dreams were riddled with her face. Her gentle smile, her incredible voice. And her anger. Her tears, her harsh words that bit and tore into his skin and ripped it apart.  Words that clung to his heart, that he’d never forget. Black and cold as the asphalt he’d collapsed against, bitter as the violent pain that bit into his leg. Her voice hurt so much.

He woke with tears on his face, movement outside the elevator doors causing his stir. The book cart, he guessed, the soft thump of heels on carpet telling him precisely who was on the other side pushing it.

Belle…

She was humming. Her soft, warm song slipped through doors in a gentle melody and he closed his eyes, listening.

He knew that song. It was the one he’d played at the manor, that they’d danced to together. Oh how warm it was, how soft her eyes were, how lovingly she looked at him. She asked him to play it over and over, not wanting to stop until her feet hurt. He obliged her, of course, making sure it started over seamlessly.

They’d spun across the floor for hours, laughing, smiling. He dipped her, kissed her, lifted her into the air and when they finally stopped Belle rested her head against his chest and just...stayed there awhile. Their clothes changed back and she looked up at him, cupping his cheek and whispered, “You’re my husband.” It was the first time she’d said it, and oh how beautiful it sounded.

He’d smiled and carried her to the large master bedroom, showed her how dearly and desperately he loved her. How much he needed her.

That night a violent nightmare of cages and cackling in the dark jerked him awake, and rather than wake her and seek his comfort there, he went to tinker with the hat instead. So many nights had ill dreams woken him and he’d left her to her peace for the comfort of magic. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that either.

Coward…

The hat meant freedom, the hat meant no imprisonment and torture ever again, it meant that no matter what happened he would never be forced into the bed of-

He cringed, steeling himself, and focusing on Belle’s song.

But it choked off rather suddenly.

She’d realized what she’d been singing. “Oh…” She whispered, voice wavering with tears.

He shut his eyes, pained.

It was silent awhile, just the hum of the lights and Belle’s fumbled attempts to place books on shelves.

After the fifth one toppled to the ground -he’d counted- and she crooned to it and apologized, the silence was broken by soft, gentle sobbing. “I miss you,” she said, and he jumped, terrified a moment that she’d seen him but no. No, she was talking to the air, and it sounded as if she’d done this before.

“Every day I miss you. I thought it would get better, but it...it didn’t. If anything it’s worse. Not knowing where you are. If you’re okay… Oh, Rumple, I hope you’re okay.” He heard her walk closer, just a step or two needed and her back was pressed against the doors. She sniffed. “That ache I told you about? That hollow feeling? I think I know why it’s there. I’ve felt it before. When Regina took me. When you went to Neverland, when you died, when Zelena had you? I felt it then too. All of those times I felt it just like now. But it’s worse this time.”

She slid down to the floor, just beyond his reach. “It’s worse because I did it. I forced you away. And now you’re gone forever, you’re just gone, Rumple. I’m never going to get you back. And I can’t go get you to talk to you, there’s no way they’d let me take the scroll to go and fetch you.

“But...but what if you’re cold?” She whimpered. He winced again. So close, she was so near. He could swear he smelled her perfume. “What if you’re hungry and cold and alone? What if you’re dead?!” She started to sob again. “Oh, Rumple, what if I killed you? What if I killed you…”

He shook his head, wishing he had the bravery to speak. To tell her he was right there waiting, just on the other side and if she really wanted to see him there he was. But he didn’t. He didn’t. His throat closed and went dry and left him mute.

Coward…

“I hate this. I hate feeling like this. I hate being thanked for sending you off, I hate the pitying looks I get from people and all the apologies they give me when they call me Mrs. Gold. As if it were something horrible. Some blackened name. I’ll bet that’s what Milah did, hm? She probably got mad when people referred to her as your wife. Well not...not me. You broke my heart, but I will not deny that I married you!”

She struck the door and he jumped. She sobbed awhile.

Oh, in another life he would appear right in front of her, kneel down, cup her wet face and thumb those tears away, whisper to her that she was safe, and it was alright. No need for tears, little Belle, everything’s going to be alright now, and he would kiss her so softly and just hold her. She could beat on his chest and his back, curse his name but she would still hold onto him. Letting go again would mean he might disappear again, he knew her too well. She would curse and yell and maybe shove him before she dissolved against his chest and wept and begged him not to toy with her like this…

But that would do more harm than good right now. He needed to get the witches sated before he went to her. Before he even tried for his happy ending.

That didn’t make this any harder.

She cried that broken, unbridled sound usually saved for her worst nightmares and he reached toward the closed doors, pressing his hand against it where her back would be, crying himself. Sweet Belle… Such pain he’d caused her. Such horrific agony. He loathed himself for it. How could she ever want him?

“Rumple,” she shuddered. “Come home. No matter what happens, whatever I do to dull this pain, please…” She choked off. “Please, come home.”

His forehead rested against the door, shoulders shaking in silent cries. “I will, Belle,” he said in the softest whisper.

Belle gasped and sat up, moving away from it. He stared at it with wide eyes, shaking his head and hoping she left it shut.

She sniffed, dismissing herself and what she might have heard and pushed the cart to another part of the library.

Her footsteps were gone and he covered his mouth, sobbing into it and his knees, just as broken, but not because he was so far from her, but because he was so close.

He’d made a promise, however. And he would keep it. He would come home to her, no matter what.

 


End file.
